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ELECTION OF SENATORS BY THE PEOPLE. 




TIRTTSTS. 



"Let us tear down the intermediary wall and take from the legislatures 
the selection of United States Senators and we will destroy one of the most 
potent powers through which corporate power now holds its sway, and it 
can then be no longer said that it is as difficult for a poor man to enter 
the Senate of the United States as for a rich man to enter the kingdom of 
heaven." 



SPEECHES 



OF 



HON. THEODORE F.KLUTTZ, 

i OF NORTH CAROLINA, 



IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



Thursday, April 12, and Friday, June 1, 1900. 



WASHINGTON. 
1900. 



..<F25 






s*& 



Election of United States Senators by the People. 



SPEECH 

OF 

HON. THEODORE E. KLUTTZ, 

of north carolina, 
In the House of Representatives, 

April 12, 1900. 

The House having under consideration H. J. Resolution No. 28, proposing 
an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing for the 
election of Senators by the people- 
Mr. KLUTTZ said: 

Mr. Speaker: I am glad that we have enough of the Constitu- 
tion left for purposes of amendment; and as we have kept the 
remains of that venerated instrument so resolutely at home, it 
behooves us to amend it as resolutely for the best interests of our 
own home people. I am an old-fashioned believer in the Constitu- 
tion. 

While it remains the supreme law of the land it should be 
obeyed, and those of us who have sworn to observe it should be 
careful in all things to conform both to its letter and spirit. Un- 
fortunately, bath have been grievously violated in the election of 
Senators of the United States, and the time has long since come 
when its provisions in that behalf have demonstrably shown the 
need of amendment. [Applause.] 

Our fathers, honest themselves, too implicitly believed that 
their descendants would always remain so. 

The honest people of a State, electing supposedly honest mem- 
bers of their State legislatures, likewise mistaken! y believe, as is 
too often proven, that they will remain honest after election. 

The most superficial perusal of the records of Congress for many 
years, including the present session down to this very date, dem- 
onstrates that if wise at the time of its adoption, the method of 
electing United States Senators by the legislatures of the several 
States has long since become an evil which cries aloud for amend- 
ment. [Applause.] 

The people of this country, in tones not to be mistaken, demand 
that they be allowed to elect Senators by their own direct vote, 
and the legislatures of the great States of Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
Montana, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, 
Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minne- 
sota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North 
Dakcta, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and 
otheis, thirty-four in all, have voiced this demand in petitions 
and memorials to Congress and in resolutions of instructions to 
their representatives here. 

In the light of recent scandalous events, the petitions from some 
of these States are absolutely pathetic. If the people could have 
directly elected Senators, the obloquy which in the popular esti- 
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3 

niation— and too justly so — beclouds the title to many seats in that 
august body could never have had foundation. 

The report of the majority of the committee shows that under 
the present system several vacancies now exist, due to the corrupt 
manipulations of State legislatures by wealthy aspirants for Sen- 
atorial honors. Very recent exposures made by committees of 
the Senate are such as to emphasize the absolute need for speedy 
amendment to the Constitution in this regard. 

It is enough for me that the people demand it, that all the peo- 
ple demand it, for "everybody is wiser than anybody," even if 
"anybody" happens to be the Senate of the United States. [Ap- 
plause.] I quote these axiomatic truths from the committee's re- 
port: 

The fundamental principle of a republican form of government is based 
upon the idea that it derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. 

Again : 

If the people have the wisdom to elect governors and State officers, our 
State judiciary (and Representative in Congress), why may they not be per- 
mitted to enjoy the right of electing United States Senators? 

What divinity doth hedge about these august Senators that the 
common people may only vote for them indirectly and by proxy? 

Let us tear down the intermediary wall and take from the leg- 
islatures the selection of United States Senators, and we will 
destroy one of the most potent powers (to quote again the lan- 
guage of the committee) through which corporate influence now 
holds its sway, and it can then no longer be said that it is as diffi- 
cult for a poor man to enter the Senate of the United States as 
for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 

There are rnany honorable men in the Senate, and therefore I 
shall make no application of the story of the old darkey preacher, 
who, before beginning his sermon, raised a large rock aloft with 
• the startling announcement, " Thar is a nigger in this congregation 
what's been stealing chickens last night, and I'm gwine to heave 
this here rock at his head," when every male head before him at 
once ducked behind a bench. [Laughter and applause.] 

I will not say that a somewhat similar announcement, varied 
only to suit the environment, would be followed by similar action 
in the Senate. 

Mr. Speaker, in supporting this proposition I am not merely 
giving expression to my individual views, but I am speaking for 
the whole people of North Carolina, as I believe, without regard 
to party. 

I am but obeying a resolution of instructions from the legisla- 
ture of my State, which was passed unanimously, as I recollect, 
without party distinction or division, and I am bat trying to give 
effect to one of the planks to the Democratic platform of my State. 

Neither of the propositions before the House is exactly what I 
could wish, but I am so heartily in favor of the general proposi- 
tion that I shall heartily support the substitute offered on behalf 
of the minority by the distinguished gentleman from Missouri 
[Mr. Rucker] , amende^ to accord with the suggestions of the 
gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Powers] . 

I am reminded of the homely wisdom of a young fellow in my 
district, who, on his first venture at courting, was discarded, or, 
as we say in North Carolina, was "kicked." Of course he was 
awfully surprised, for every young fellow thinks that any girl 
ought to be glad to get him and can hot understand why he 
should be rejected. So, stunned and smarting, he insisted upon 

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knowing why she would not have him. Finally she said, "Johnny, 
it's because I love somebody else better.'' "Oh, yes, Sally," said 
he. "so do T, but we can't get them, you know." [Laughter.] 

That young man had very nearly sounded the depths of the 
safer philosophy of life; and it is generally wise to do the best we 
can under any given circumstances. 

Acting upon this principle, I shall support the substitute of the 
minority, amended to meet the views of gentlemen, amended in 
any and every minor detail, so only that it maintains and holds 
out to the American people a genuine, general, and feasible plan 
of electing Senators by a direct vote without intermediary. I 
have hope, sir, that the quickened conscience of the Senate will 
join us in submitting such an amendment to the Constitution, 
and if submitted to the legislatures of the several States its adop- 
tion is as certain as the rising of the morrow's sun. [Applause.] 

I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. 
Breazeale], 



Trusts. 
SPEECH 

OF 

HON. THEODORE F. KLTJTTZ, 

OP NORTH CAROLINA, 

In the House of Eepbesentatives, 

Friday, June 1, 1900. 

The House having under consideration the joint resolution (H. J. Res. 138) 
proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States for the 
regulation of trusts— 

Mr. KLUTTZ said: 

Mr. Speaker: I regard the proposal of this amendment by the 
majority at this time as one of the most remarkable of all the 
phenomena of legislation. 

For six long months the Republican majority, with absolute 
control of this House, with a stalwart in the chair, with carefully 
constituted committees, with iron-clad rules, has sat here stolid, 
indifferent alike to appeal and abuse; deaf to the remonstrances 
of the minority and to the demands of the people for legislation 
for the extirpation, or at least the repression, of trusts. 

Deaf, dumb, and blind for six long months, that majority, in the 
very closing hours of the session, just six days before the time 
fixed for adjournment, has at last awakened to the fact that the 
demands of an outraged and indignant public must, in show at 
least, be heard. The smitings of guilty conscience, the realiza- 
tion that something must be done, coupled with the fear that 
something might be done to curb the trusts, has found hypocrit- 
ical and fraudulent expression in both the matter and the manner 
of this proposed constitutional amendment. 

Let me quote it in full: 

Article XVI. 

Section 1. All powers conferred by this article shall extend to the several 
States and Territories, the District of Columbia, and all territory under the 
sovereignty and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States 
4582 



Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to define, regulate, prohibit, or dissolve 
trusts, monopolies, or combinations, whether existing in the form of a cor- 
poration or otherwise. 

The several States may continue to exercise such power in any manner 
not in conflict with the laws of the United States. 

Sec. 3. Congress shall have power to enforce the provisions of this article 
by appropriate legislation. 

Section 1 seeks to write into the Constitution the false and im- 
perialistic theory which in the recent Porto Rican discussion was 
so ably combated not only by the Democratic minority, but also 
by such able lawyers on the Republican side as McCall, Little- 
field, Crumpacker, Smith. Lorimer, and others, that the Consti- 
tution does not ex proprio vigore extend over all territory under the 
sovereignty and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. 

No constitutional amendment has ever contained such language 
or admission, and none ever will so long as the American people 
are mindful of the teachings of the fathers and the traditions of 
liberty. To enact this section into law would be to admit that 
territory may be acquired, held, and governed by the United 
States outside of and without regard to the Constitution unless 
that instrument shall be expressly extended to such territory by 
Congress or by constitutional amendment. It would admit all 
the claims of the imperialists and make the President imperator 
indeed. 

Even a cursory reading of section 2 will expose its true charac- 
ter and intent. It strikes down the power of the States, does 
away with the last fragment of the doctrine of States' rights, and 
lodges in Congress the sole power — 

to define, regulate, prohibit, or dissolve trusts, monopolies, or combinations, 
whether existing in the form of a corporation or otherwise. 

Mark the language! If this amendment be adopted, the Con- 
gress has this awful, exclusive, controlling power, and has it ab- 
solutely. With a Congress controlled and dominated by the 
trusts, as this Congress is, can any sensible man doubt how that 
power would be exercised? Corrupt combinations of capital for 
the oppression of labor would go unscathed, while combinations 
of labor for protection against such corrupt combinations would 
be '"defined " as unlawful with a vengeance. 

The tobacco trust would have nothing to fear, while the tobacco 
growers and manufacturers who dared combine to resent its 
rapacity would soon find themselves " defined " into the peniten- 
tiary. But why multiply illustrations? 

Under this amendment the trusts would need but to buy and 
control one house of Congress to effectually prevent any legisla- 
tion whatever against them. 

And how transparently deceitful and fraudulent is the second 
paragraph of this section: 

The several States may continue to exercise such power in any manner 
not in conflict with the laws of the United States. 

The merest tyro in the law can not be deceived by false pre- 
tense like this. 

Congress will have the power not only to regulate the interstate 
operations of the trusts— and it has this power now — but it will 
have the right to invade the States and to " define " and crush any 
corporation or combination in any State, whether engaged in inter- 
state or foreign commerce or not, regardless of the laws of such 
State. 

When Congress legislates it makes " the laws of the United 
States," and under this amendment no State may make any law 

4582 ' 



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in conflict therewith. Thus supreme power is sought to he con- 
ferred upon Congress and the States stripped of all power over 
their own corporations or those of other States doing business 
within their borders. Trust-ridden, trust-controlled, trust sup- 
ported, trust-loving, as the Republican party is, do you expect 
any sane man to believe that you intend, expect, or desire this 
amendment to become a part of the organic law of the land? 

Delude not yourselves thus. If you had intended or desired to 
secure its passage, why did you hold this amendment back to the 
closing days of the session? Why did you refuse the Democratic 
minority of the committee the poor privilege of even seeing it 
until it was ready for introduction into the House? Why did you 
bring it in under a cast-iron rule, which permitted no opportunity 
of amendment and which allowed time for only the most meager 
discussion? Why did you, purposely, so objectionably frame it 
as to render its acceptance by the Democratic minority impos- 
sible? 

The poor explanation of the distinguished gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Grosvenor] that it is the plan of the majority, that the 
majority must take the responsibility, and that therefore the mi- 
nority must have no voice in framing it, but be content to vote for 
or against it without power of amendment, is so weak as to dem- 
onstrate the absence of all possible excuse or explanation for this 
remarkable course of the majority. 

True, the majority must take the responsibility for legislation, 
but here a two-thirds majority is required. You have no such 
majority, and can therefore have no hope of passing this amend- 
ment without large help from the minority; yet you deny that 
minority all help in framing or considering it, and deliberately 
frame it so as to render their support impossible. 

Out upon such humbug. 

Then, again, you can not but know that even if the gantlet of 
this House was run, your amendment could not possibly pass the 
Senate at this session, and would hang up for service in the next 
Presidential election; after which, if you again succeed in delud- 
ing the people and buying the Presidency, you could easily have 
it defeated in the Senate, and the farce would be over. Eesides, 
you might use it as a threat to fry more fat out of the trusts. You 
know, too, and the country knows, that even if this amendment 
should pass both House and Senate, there can be no hope of its 
ratification by three-fourths of all the States, without which it 
can never become a part of the Constitution. 

Unless I am greatly mistaken in the temper and patriotism of 
this House, your proposed measure will be ignominionsly defeated 
here and that defeat will have the approval of the people of this 
great Republic. 

You are indulging in a cheap "play to the grandstand." but, 
ostrich-like, you are befooling only yourselves. As evidence of 
this I call attention to but two of the many unmistakable utter- 
ances of the press on this question. 

First, I commend this extract from the Washington Post, a 
great independent paper, which supports the Administration 
whenever it can do so without stultification. 

DEMOCRATIC POSITION ON TRUSTS. 

Our Democratic friends in Congress are to be congratulated upon the atti- 
tude they have assumed toward the constitutional amendment proposed by 
the House Committpe on the Judiciary, of which Hon. George W. Ray, of 
New York, is the chairman. Mr. Ray's proposition is obviously impracti- 
cable, and, as many believe, was intended to be so. By supporting it the 
458:2 



Democrats would have deliberately connived at a virtually permanent retire- 
ment of the trust issue; withdrawn it from the campaign, and thereby robbed 
their party of one of its most powerful engines of war. They express their 
utter disbelief in the sincerity of any representative Republican effort to cur- 
tail the power of the trusts. It would have been, therefore, suicidal on their 
part to commit themselves to an arrangement most palpably calculated to 
serve the alleged purposes of their antagonists. 

There was still another serious objection, which is set fourth in clause 3 of 
the resolution adopted by the Democratic caucus on Tuesday night: 

"3. We oppose and urge Democrats in Congress to vote against the consti- 
tutional amendment proposed by the Reptiblican majority of the Judiciary 
Committee unless amended by striking out section 1 thereof and adding thereto 
in section 2, in lieu of these words, ' The several States may continue to exer- 
cise such power in any manner not in conflict with the laws of the United 
States,' the following: 'Nothing in this article, nor any act of Congress in 
pursuance thereof, shall operate to abridge or impair any of the rights or 
powers held by any of the States prior to its adoption. 1 " 

It seems to be the case, therefore, that the Democrats regarded the Ray 
proposition not only as a scheme to postpone, perhaps indefinitely, all gov- 
ernmental action against the trusts, and incidentally to entrap the Democrats 
into withdrawing the issue of the campaign of 1900, but also, in case the 
amendment should be finally adopted, as an abridgment of the rights and 
powers of the States. Certainly, holding such opinions, they could not have 
taken any course other than that referred to. Their present position, in 
this matter at least, seems to be unassailable. 

I further beg to commend to your prayerful consideration the 
following from the Washington Times, and particularly to the 
extract therein contained from the rabid, radical Administration 
organ, the New York Sun: 

THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT. 

The agents of the Administration in the House of Representatives will be 
welcome to whatever satisfaction is coming to them on account of their cheap 
political trick in taking up a proposed constitutional amendment ostensibly 
aimed at their masters, the trusts, six days before the date set for adjourn- 
ment. 

Some of the majority leaders in the House are hugging themselves over 
the achievement, believing it to be a monster of ingenuity which will " put 
the Democrats in a hole; " but it will do nothing of the kind. Its hypocrisy 
is so barefaced and its object so clear that it will serve to bring the richly 
deserved contempt of the country upon its authors and supporters. This 
view of the matter is held by eminent Republican as well as Democratic 
authorities. The leading organ of the party in the country, the New York 
Sun, yesterday editorially referred to the Jenkins joint resolution in these 
terms: 

" When we say plainly that this is the most dishonest and therefore the 
most discreditable piece of work achieved during the present session by the 
leaders of Republican policy in the House, we are not speaking of the merits 
of the proposed amendment. Its revolutionary character, the sweeping 
change it would effect in the entire system of our institutions, the bestowal 
upon Congress of an unlimited and arbitrary power over all private business 
in all the States and without regard to State lines or State rights, need not 
even be discussed. There is no more prospect of its adoption by a two-thirds 
vote of both House and Senate, and of its ratification by the legislatures of 
three-fourths of the forty-five States than there is of the adoption of a con- 
stitutional amendment vesting in the Federal Government the direct man- 
agement of all the myriad industries of this land. 

"The dishonesty of the performance lies in the fact that there was no 
expectation on the part of the author of this resolution, or of the Republic- 
ans on the Judiciary Committee who favorably reported it, or of the Repub- 
licans in the House who were willing to vote for it, that the proposed six- 
teenth amendment will ever amount to more than a campaign trick of the 
cheapest and unworthiest description." 

When one of its chief est exponents denounces its actions, as the Sun does, 
the Republican party need not indulge in any celebration over its blank- 
cartridge shot at the monopolistic elements which own and control it and 
furnish the money with which it expects to carry the next Presidential elec- 
tion. A more doddering piece of campaign idiocy than the sixteenth pre- 
tendment proposed against the trusts, by the men who are in Congress only 
by the grace and money of the trusts, is not to be found in all the pages of a 
not overclean American political history. 

No, gentlemen of the majority, your little piece of peanut 
politics will only bring down upon you the deserved contempt of 

4582 



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an outraged and long-suffering people. They know that your 
party is, and has been, the piomoter, the friend, the shield and 
buckler of the trusts. They know that your Attorney-General, 
purposely selected, with ample power in the laws already on the 
statute book, has utterly failed to proceed against or prosecute a 
single one of the trusts. They know that it was with the money 
contributed by the trusts that you debauched election officers, 
bribed and intimidated voters, bought States, and stole the Presi- 
dency and the Congress; and they know you are playing to do it 
again. 

They have suffered under the insolence and arrogance, the 
heartlessness and grinding cruelty of these corrupt and criminal 
aggregations of i.l-gotten capital; they have traced the evil to its 
source, and know whence comes this brood of hell. They wage 
no war on capital as such; they welcome and would foster pro- 
ductive industry and enterprise, but they have determined in 
their righteous wrath that the trust must go. They have listened 
to their sorrow to the siren song of Republican promise, and they 
know that the only hope of relief irom the domination of the 
trusts, the only hope of the salvation of the plain people of this 
country from industrial slavery, lies in the rout and defeat of the 
Republican party and the election of a Democratic President and 
Congress. 

Well may you trim and dissemble: well may you try to deceive 
yet once again, by feigning to legislate against your makers and 
masters. The people are aroused to the importance of this mighty 
contest, and though the odds are great, right will prevail against 
might, truth against falsehood, the people against the trusts. 

Nor is this the only count in the mighty indictment which you 
will have to answer at the ballot box in November. 

Your frequent and flagrant infractions of the Constitution, 
your disregard of solemn promises to the Porto Ricans; your 
murder of our brave soldiers in the Philippines by incompetent 
generalship; your determination to crush out liberty in these 
islands; your anglomania. which has committed you to the obso- 
lete Hay-Pauncefote treaty and renounced our right to build, 
fortify, and protect an American isthmian canal; your utter 
denial of even an expression of American sympathy for the suf- 
fering South African Republics: the reign of loot and plunder 
in which your officials have reveled in Cuba and the Philippines; 
your ill- smelling scandal of Gage and the City National Bank; 
your absolute refusal to lighten any part of the burdens of the 
war taxes; all these, and many others of like ilk, are the sins for 
which you will be called to answer at the bar of en'ightened and 
outraged public opinion. Your record is such as no party can 
successfully face. If your eyes were not holden, you would even 
now see, what all 'he world sees, the handwriting on the wall, the 
"Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" of tlie Republican party. 
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